I offer a warm welcome to you, the representatives of the Sixt company from throughout the world. I thank Mrs Regina Sixt for her introduction, which spoke of your shared commitment to works of charity, carried out through the Drying Little Tears Foundation and aimed above all at helping children in various situations of need.

These efforts allow you the opportunity to make your professional activity a noble vocation, by recognizing a greater meaning in life. Beyond personal and financial success, you are striving to serve the common good by working to increase the goods of this world and to make them more available to all (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 203).

You have assembled here in Rome to meet the Successor of Peter, who has a special place in his heart for the least and the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters. Such are our children. Drying their tears through concrete projects of assistance is a way of combatting the culture of waste and helping to build a more humane society.

I encourage you to pursue your work in the conviction that God’s tender love can be seen in a particular way on the faces of innocent children in need of care and support. May the Lord reward you with his many gifts.

I ask your prayers for my mission in the service of the Church, and to you, your dear grandchildren and all your families, I cordially impart my Apostolic Blessing.